Liberty Launcher Design

Its the king of crutch, the faster blaster, the green machine, everyone’s favorite(?) rocket launcher, the Liberty Launcher! Its stats have been manipulated several times over its life, and pretty much has always been disliked by someone or another. Today we’ll examine its history, and its faults.

The Liberty Launcher was released as part of the Uber Update. It had significantly faster rocket speed (40%) at the cost of Black Box clip size. Unlike the Direct Hit, it had normal damage and blast radius. Among most skilled players, the original LL was the definitive textbook case of a ‘crutch’ weapon, a gun that serves to make low-skilled life a bit easier, but being more limited in a higher skilled environ. The extra speed helps newbs shoot the feet, but more experienced sollies would be more limited by having less shots, as well as having to adapt to the faster speed for air shots and rocket jumps. The fact that such a crutch weapon came out with the free-to-play update did not help its reputation.

It was later changed. It now had four shots, but 25% less damage per shot. Effectively, the launcher did the same damage with a full clip, just this time spread out between four shots rather than three. While it made the weapon less annoying to deal with, it was an overall nerf to time-to-kill. Having your main bread and butter weapon being significantly weaker was not worth the extra speed. Usage of the weapon fell to near nothing, to say the least.

Lastly, it was buffed to its modern state. Rocket jumping damage was reduced to match the damage it did to others. It was an interesting change, the LL seemed to better match the theme of the Airborne Armaments set (not that it matters…). Self damage can be significantly reduced by combining with the gunboats, or you can enjoy increased mobility while packing a shotgun or backpack.

Even with this increase in versatility, that damage nerf still hurts, badly. Against anything higher than soldier health, you will need more than 4 shots to defeat them. Combined with falloff, the faster rockets do little to extend your range. Also, the increased time-to-kill reduces the advantage of bombing in on someone, it gives them far more time to react.

If you really wish to use this gun, pair it with concherer, a shotgun or maybe the bison. The concherer’s regen helps somewhat with rocket jumping, and it requires the least damage to charge. The shotgun provides a decent source of damage when your primary is lacking, and the bison can act as a sort of second rocket launcher, if need be.